There’s a very good reason you’re in business for yourself. Many small business owners started on their “e-venture” because of an interest in ending the day-in and day-out drudgery of the working world. Others may have started e-businesses because of some technical experience or expertise that allowed them to create and sell a certain product or provide a certain service.

In many cases, the business owner’s abilities at creating a site and selling a product or service lean more toward the accurate production and delivery of that item rather than the process of selling that item. In layman’s terms that means that many entrepreneurs are probably better at building a better mousetrap than selling it. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about: Most entrepreneurs don’t become entrepreneurs because they have a passion for selling, it’s usually because they have a passion for sharing their ideas or products or skills with the world.

But because you’re in business, that automatically means you’re going to sell. Like it or not, if you have a product and you want money for it, you’re a salesperson. So for those of you who have a better mousetrap and simply don’t know how to share it with the world, here is a basic sales process to help you. Although this process seems generalized, each step is critical to making sales in your business… even if you don’t immediately recognize how YOUR business does that particular step.

1. Prospecting: Like a prospector who is looking for gold, prospecting means that you find people who want to buy your product. This might mean identifying a niche to market to or it may mean advertising to get people to come to your site.

2. Presenting: In traditional sales, this was the step where the salesperson would show up at his or her scheduled time and present the product to the potential customer. Nowadays, your website does the presenting for you. In most cases, the very first page of your site is where you’ll want to do most of your presenting because that’s what people will see first when they click to your site and they’ll immediately form an opinion that could sway their decision.

3. Dealing with Objections: In traditional sales, the salesperson would finish the presentation, ask for the sale, and wait for the objections (“your price is too high” or “I don’t like the color” or “we’re not buying that product right now”) and then he or she would deal with them as they came up. As an e-business owner, you have to anticipate your customer’s objections and deal with them on your site, for example in an FAQ section.

4. Close: The close is where you ask for the order and (hopefully) the prospect accepts and becomes your customer. On your website, this happens at the very end of your sales letter, where you might have a “buy now” button.

5. Follow up: This often-overlooked phase of the sale is critical to keeping past customers coming back to buy from you again.